WorldViews. The World in Textbooks

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Topics

The source materials in WorldViews are subdivided in different subject areas by the editorial team. Keywords are assigned to those subject areas in order to enable comparison and summarise their content. Moreover, keywords serve to stimulate explorative searches. The list of keywords is compiled inductively, based on the available source material, but strives not to be overly restrictive. Specific research questions can be followed up by using the free text search.

MODELS OF SOCIETY AND VISIONS OF THE FUTURE

The subject area “Models of Society and Visions of the Future” comprises textbook sources containing ideal concepts of the society of a country or a larger social entity. The extracts convey hopes, expectations and fears that are rooted in certain historical situations as well as the present. The textbook extracts might address, for example, different areas of societal interaction or might evaluate economic and political systems. In colonial or post-colonial contexts certain countries are portrayed as progressive or backward in comparison to others by structuring underlying narratives with the help of keywords such as demography, migration, or globality.

VIOLENT CONFLICT AND PEACE

The subject area “Violent conflict and Peace” contains textbook excerpts concerning wars of global significance as well as transnational and regional conflicts. The depictions of these events highlight the capacity of WorldViews to bring together the heterogeneous narratives of different countries, allowing them to participate in the presentation of a common history. Some textbook narratives dissociate themselves, retrospectively, from a partisan perspective in respect to violent conflicts of the past. In other cases partisan affiliations have become so ingrained that this positioning remains unquestioned after the end of armed conflicts. By way of contrast, this subject also encompasses depictions of peace processes and political negotiations that portray past and current endeavours for peaceful coexistence.

STRUCTURES OF POWER, DOMINANCE AND FREEDOM

The subject area “Structures of Power, Dominance and Freedom” contains textbook extracts about colonialism and imperialism as well as depictions which deal with overcoming imbalances of power and the post-colonial era. This subject area also comprises descriptions of different social and political movements from the past or the present, which oppose unequal distributions of power and oppression in favour of freedom and independence.

HETEROGENEITY OF SOCIETIES

The subject area “Heterogeneity of Societies” contains textbook extracts focusing on the societal status quo, which is often characterised by diversity in both past and present-day societies. The term “diversity” can be applied to a variety of different categories. An example is the phenomenon of migration. It can, on the one hand, be part of the national identity of a country or, on the other hand, be used as focal point to start debates about discrimination and dissociation.

SYSTEMS OF MEANING

The subject area “Systems of Meaning” contains textbook extracts dealing with different religious as well as mystical and philosophical movements. They are integrated into the WorldViews edition if they are characterised by an inter-regional or international dimension. The subject area also contains depictions relating to overarching topics such as missionary work or secularisation.

CONSTRUCTIONS OF SPACE AND BELONGING

The subject area “Constructions of Space and Belonging” contains textbook extracts dealing with geographically or spatially-related internal and external labelling processes. Labels used include constructs such as Europe, the Arab world, the Orient, or the Global South, but also concepts such as identity or the nation state. National concepts and models of identification are often shaped by depictions of belonging or exclusion and are reflected in textbooks in a number of different ways.

TRANSNATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND ORGANISATIONS

The subject area “Transnational and International Relations and Organisations” contains textbook extracts which deal with diplomatic and other institutionalised bi- and multilateral relations between different countries and regions. Organised associations between states and their activities in the areas of international politics, economics, and law (i.e. human rights, development cooperation, and humanitarian aid) are reflected alongside the political positions of the countries for which the textbooks were written.

If you use more than one search term, they are automatically linked using AND. This means that results will only be displayed where all the search terms appear in the metadata or full text.

Example of search with automatic linking: print book Example result: “I would like to print a book for my father”As an alternative to automatic AND-linking, you can explicitly link your search terms using AND or OR. In the latter case, results will be displayed even if only one of the search terms is found.

Example of search terms linked by OR: book OR print Example result: A very good book”, “There are some good passages in this book”, “The print was very faint”.

In the case of a simple search, target words are automatically right-truncated. However, if you are performing an AND or OR search, you can specify left-truncation by using the asterisk.

Example of search with automatic right truncation: print book Example result: “I want to have a book printed for my mother” Example of search with explicit left-truncation: *read Results would include bread, tread, dread, etc. Please note that there is no right or left truncation if you enter a search term between quotation marks.

Once the search has been performed, all results are initially sorted in order of relevance. Thereafter, they can be re-sorted according to different metadata fields. These fields can be selected from the list in the sidebar under “Sorting”. Click your chosen metadata field a second time to change from ascending to descending order.